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Unified Communications Week in Review

Another week, another hectic round of news to get up to speed on; there’s nothing quiet in the Unified Communications industry of late. Let’s take a look.

Kontiki, a provider of cloud-based enterprise video solutions, revealed that its Enterprise Video Suite is ready for deployment in enterprise video applications and delivery. Kontiki claims that its service can be deployed in one fourth of the time it takes other providers and for half price. “I recently read someone paid over $9 million for a hybrid solution. It’s a travesty that anyone should pay that much money, when they can have a much better solution, deployed in one fourth of the time, for less than half the cost with Kontiki,” said Dan Vetras, president and chief executive officer of Kontiki.

This week we also saw encouraging news from a new report that states that the enterprise collaboration market will grow from $47.30 billion in 2014 to $70.61 billion in 2019. The report is entitled Enterprise Collaboration Market [solutions (telephony, unified messaging, conferencing, collaboration platforms, enterprise social), services, deployment, user types (SME, enterprises)] - global advancements, worldwide forecasts and analysis (2014 - 2019),” which is a lengthy name but it examines a number of different areas that will grow, which it attributes to communications standards, boost in communication data flow, and Internet connectivity.

Chinese giant Alibaba made some headlines this week too by buying a stake in relatively unknown messaging service Tango. Alibaba has invested more than $215 billion into the company with the Chinese firm taking 20 to 25 percent in the process. With WhatsApp purchased by Facebook and Viber acquired by Rakuten, the business for messaging services is heating up and now with Alibaba throwing its hat in the ring, things are sure to get interesting.

Back in the US, the FCC is considering the use of spectrum sharing to address the exponentially growing need for mobile data in the US. FCC Chairman Tim Wheeler confirmed these aspirations with recommendations from the President’s Council of Adviser on Science and Technology. The proposal would use a single “highly flexible band plan” oppose to dividing the 3.5GHz band, currently used, and put it to separate uses. Wheeler spoke of avoiding “the analog trap of Balkanizing spectrum into sub-bands, each with its own set of rules.”

Finally, in Comings and Goings, Antony Vigar will return to managed communications provider Azzurri Communications as the Head of Business Development. The company is planning to launch its cloud and managed services later this year with Vigar coming back just in time. “Returning to Azzurri was a very easy decision for me, especially the chance to resume working with my former colleagues,” said Vigar, who has experience in head roles at Vodafone. “I was impressed with the company’s commitment to developing a differentiated services proposition focused on delivering tangible outcomes and services, not simply technology to our customers and wanted to be a part of it.”

That just about wraps up our week in review for all the news and goings on in the world of Unified Communications.